


When It Counts

by jillvalentined



Series: That Would Be Too Cruel | A collection of Resident Evil Oneshots [1]
Category: Biohazard | Resident Evil (Gameverse), Resident Evil - All Media Types
Genre: Capcom can take them from my cold dead heads, Chris is only a mention, F/M, Flirting, Game: Resident Evil 3 Nemesis, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Canon, Post-Game(s), Romance, Sharing a Bed, They aren't platonic, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-08
Updated: 2020-04-08
Packaged: 2021-03-01 20:07:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,744
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23542870
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jillvalentined/pseuds/jillvalentined
Summary: Only a few days ago, Jill Valentine and Carlos Oliveira were complete strangers. About a day after escaping Raccoon City and it's inevitable destruction they both find comfort in one another in an old motel that was definitely not worth the price. They make the best of their shared trauma and one another.
Relationships: Carlos Oliveira/Jill Valentine
Series: That Would Be Too Cruel | A collection of Resident Evil Oneshots [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1694266
Comments: 14
Kudos: 174





	When It Counts

**Author's Note:**

> Uh just here to buff the Carlos/Jill tag a little more because how is it so empty? I just played three (twice already) and these two completely stole my heart. There isn't much to this just a quick thing I wrote out of boredom but the full intention is that these two have unrequited feelings and Chris/Jill is completely platonic. 
> 
> This is my first Resident Evil fic so I hope this is good enough! Will be writing more on these two and probably Claire/Leon in the future because I really enjoy their dynamic as well! 
> 
> If you have any prompt requests for them please leave them here or feel free to leave any general requests over at my tumblr @frazerchloe! Thanks!

Pale battered hands tremble with fear, with hesitation of something so unspeakable Jill simply could not enact. She’d shot her gun hundreds of times that day, hot bullets skewed across the city with a rage that she had not known before that night but she could not pull the trigger. Sucking in a sharp breath through gritted teeth, the former STARS member tightens her grasp but cannot squeeze the trigger. Carlos’ knees dig into hard earth beneath them, mud soiling the olive green of his cargo pants --- strong hands balling fists into the dirt. Shaggy locks cover his eyes but she knows what lies beneath the cover, red hues quickly approaching something else entirely and his groans cannot knock her out of the trance. She should shoot him, end his suffering while he begs: still foaming at the mouth but she cannot will herself to put him out of his misery like a dog infected with rabies. 

The cold metal of her Samurai Edge digs into the soft flesh of her hands as time slips by. He doesn’t deserve to lose every piece of himself, not when she could prevent it but Brad’s final screams ring in her ears. The guilt was eating at her more than those things would and Carlos did not deserve this kind of ending. Fuck --- Jill can’t even remember him getting bit, she’s scrambling her mind to recall when he recieved so much as a god damn scratch. None of it made sense and her boots dig into the earth a little harder, sliding her sore body back with any strength she had left. 

“Please…” It was selfish and she doesn’t know what to be asking of him. To hold on? To ask anyone else to take his life? Tell him that she can’t do it? 

Maybe Nicholai was right, she couldn’t pull the trigger when it counts. 

Formerly whiskey colored eyes pour into her own, the life slipping away from the charming soldier she’d met only a day prior. His quips and harmless flirts might have dug under her skin at the start but he saved her life, multiple times and she had done the same for him. Despite his ties with the corporation that lost her everything, Jill had put her full trust in him. Thought it might’ve paid off. What they had gone through together, was far too much to give either of them an ending so harsh. 

Her index finger sits softly at the trigger, jaw clenching tight. Not you too, her thoughts betray her --- sending a chill down her spine. 

September 28th in Raccoon City, along with the following days, had been simply hell for Jill. And she stood helpless as the long winding streets she had once called home flooded with crashed cars and screaming civilians, running for the last moments of their lives. Not everyone had been so lucky. The people of Raccoon City gradually became ravenous freaks, full of bullet holes and screeching with the last bits of humanity they could manage. 

Jill watched and she watched the same virus consume her partner. But she doesn’t need to ask again, imply some sort of safety net for herself --- escape the extra baggage that would come with putting two bullets into Carlos’ skull. Groans turn into inhumane snarls and he lunges at her, throwing her onto her back with a thud. The gun clatters against remnants of dirt and rock, far out of reach and he’s too heavy to shove off. Sharp teeth sink into the soft skin of her neck, his weight crushing her smaller frame and with the sparks of pain Jill’s eyes snap open. 

Confusion floods over her while fearful eyes dart around the room, attempting to focus on anything in the dark. Her surroundings do not resemble haunted memories of the destroyed city but rather an old motel room with hideous artwork decorating the walls illuminated by the soft light flooding in through broken shades. The cheap plastic clock on the bedside table reads a little past three am and things become a little more clear in her anxious daze. Carlos had rented the room after landing the stolen helicopter in the nearest city, far away from Umbrella and the remnants of the explosion. Jill had followed with nowhere else to go. Everything she had once known was destroyed and Chris --- hell, she hadn’t spoken to him in months. For all she knew, Chris was off in Europe investigating Umbrella in a much more obsessive phase than she had. 

Blotches of dark blues and purples scatter across her body, the tightly wound bandages only helping the various scrapes and cuts so much. The pain couldn’t be dulled, even with the handfuls of aspirin she had knocked back after a pain inducing shower. It had been the biggest relief possible, standing under searing hot water letting the heat envelope her and ease the tightness lingering in her muscles still. The burn against her wounds had caused the blonde to grit her teeth, palms pressed strongly against the wet tile but it had been the one moment alone where Jill let each bottled up emotion seep through. 

The truth was Jill had never recovered from the incident in the Arklay mansion, never had enough time to process the loss of a team she had trained and the horrors that were thrown upon her that night. She could have died then, back in July --- she could have died again in Raccoon City but some sick twist of fate was allowing her to walk away with nothing but a few broken bones and the ghosts of it all. Maybe it would’ve been easier to die but she couldn’t give up that easy, Jill could never take no for an answer.

Her aching body is caked in sweat, the cotton tee shirt she wore sticking to her bruised skin uncomfortably and if there wasn’t a man she barely knew fast asleep beside her --- the blonde would have stripped it off long ago. The bed creaks with every movement and is a little too small. Jill’s smaller frame fits fine but Carlos is much larger than her, carrying a few inches over her and bulked with muscle. He still isn’t what she expected and she can only imagine what Chris would say right about now. It wasn’t like her to have random men in her bed but it wasn’t like that, not really. Besides, after the handful of days they had spent together sharing a bed was the least of either of their worries. 

He did not feel like a stranger. 

Carlos had offered to get a separate room, scratching the back of his neck awkwardly at the lobby window and offering a sympathetic smile. Any woman must have melted under a smile like that and Jill could understand why. She had never been one prone to relationships, invested in her work and unable to commit to someone else but the soldier had not been someone she expected. Over time the brief annoyance she held for his quips shifted to gratitude and the blonde still did not know how to thank him for saving her life. It might have been his intention but Carlos slipped under her skin without notice, leaving the former officer fond of him. It wasn’t like that, she’d tell Chris but it was --- more than she knew. 

The blonde cannot recall the last time she shared a bed with another person but it sparks a warmth in her, spreading out from her abdomen throughout sore limbs. He’s settled on his side, entangled in most of the thin quilt strewn across their bodies. Muscles strain tight against the tee shirt he changed into before bad, white knuckling the ends of the blanket that wreaked of moth balls. 

It had taken an agonizingly long time after the mansion to find sleep again even with the aid of pills, unable to keep her eyes shut for more than a few hours before the horrors of the long monster filled hallways shocked her awake. No one needed to tell her it was going worse this time, she already knew that --- couldn’t shake the horrible feeling settling into her bones that they’d both be living with the memories of Raccoon City and Nemesis for the rest of their godforsaken lives. 

Jill had been so adjusted to being alone, often finding comfort in her own silence and a six pack of cheap beer from the corner store. Late nights were spent researching and marking notes on an old wall in her apartment, torn out pages of notebooks thumbtacked to the wall chipping off white paint. The team had been concerned of her minor mental derailment after STARS had been disbanded and she, along with the other survivors were stripped of their badge. Naturally, she stuck her nose in places it didn’t belong and that screwed her but all of that had left her mind --- if only momentarily. 

She did not want to be alone anymore.

Stretching the exhaustion from her limbs, Jill shifts onto her left side with a hiss of pain --- ignoring the nagging ache as the firm mattress presses too hard into her ribs. Regardless, bandages arms snake their way under his, pulling herself a little closer. All her gathered courage running from Nemesis would have counted for nothing if Carlos were to awake, the thought of retracting from his touch and falling back asleep on her own side of the bed repeatingly crossing her mind. 

Was this crossing a line? 

The blonde settles in close to him, finding comfort in the man sleeping beside her. Or well, Carlos isn’t that light of a sleeper. He shifts, arm reaching for Jill’s and rolls onto his back to look at her in the dark. Blinking the slumber from his eyes, Carlos recognizes speaks exhaustion dripping from his hoarse words. “Jill? You okay?” 

They remain too close for comfort, sitting in silence while the clock ticks by. The room feels empty, the dull sound of a running fan and audible late night activity filling a distant void. There’s the occasional honk of a car horn or some drunk patron wandering down the hall outside but they remain the same. Jill slips into his space again, settling down comfortably against his strong frame --- head resting against his shoulder. “Yeah… I think so.” And without question, he pulls her close arm wrapping around her tight. 

They are safe.


End file.
